So, recently, in an unfortunate turn of events, my laptop (Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9 2024, infamous for motherboard failures on the Intel SKUs), capacitors decided they had enough and would function better if they were ash (something Garry Oak could never come to terms with).
I was not aware until I took it to a repair shop where I discovered that my laptop was pretty much a paperweight and most I could salvage was the RAM and SSD.
I bought an enclosure for the same, and put on a thermal pad on top of the SSD from my laptop and into the enclosure. Then, I plugged it in into my friend's laptop, and unexpectedly... the rEFInd Bootloader recognised my OS and gave me an option to boot into it.
To my surprise, something marvelous happened. All my files were intact, as well as my entire GNOME desktop with all the extensions. As if it were born again (haha, get it?).
This led me to write this post. I am a daily driver of Linux, which has hardware detection on boot, as well as drivers for Intel, AMD and NVIDIA (only barebones drivers) baked INTO the kernel, which removes the traditional Windows hassle of reinstalling Windows.
Everything I did from that laptop onto the SSD, it wrote. It functionally was like a Live Boot Environment, but all the changes made were saved. If I were to move this, I could just bring the enclosure with me, plug it into ANY device, and access my 'computer'.
All thanks to the paperweight.
Here is how to DIY:
- One SSD (preferably from a computer, do the following first: Install Linux distro (preferably a Rolling Release, but options like Fedora work.), partition it accordingly, install your tools, and move your projects.)
- Thermal Pads (Absolutely necessary)
- M.2 to USBC/USBA Enclosure
What to do:
- Install the SSD into the enclosure and cut the thermal pads according to the length of the SSD.
- Install the thermal pad on top of the SSD and GENTLY press down to remove any air bubbles, especially on the big chip.
- Reattach the top of the enclosure.
Aaaand you are good to go! You now have a functional PC where everything remains intact regardless of hardware!
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